George Inness, who saw the divine in nature, dedicated his career to landscape painting. In his early years, he concentrated on detailed renderings, but by the 1870s he had softened his forms and created striking contrasts of tone to express the spirituality that motivated him. The Rainbow belongs to a dramatic series of storm scenes painted by Inness in the late 1870s. It has its roots in the work of the Hudson River School, a group of artists who painted landscapes in New York State, New England, and even the far West between 1825 and 1875. These artists believed that the landscape represented God, and that landscape painting could bring viewers closer to the spirituality necessary to lead a righteous existence.
A deeply religious man, Inness followed the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish mystic who taught that objects in the material world have correspondences in the realm of the spirit. Inness composed his landscapes so as to convey an otherworldly presence and freely rearranged nature to suggest various moods or states of mind. In The Rainbow, he has charged the setting with contrasts of climate, mood, and theme: the passing storm provides sudden atmospheric changes from dark to light, while the ominous black clouds on the left are a foil for the optimistic symbol of the rainbow.
The things in nature are nothing but effects; their causes are in the spiritual world.
-Emanuel Swedenborg, 1749
